The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1909, Page 66

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66

have sinned ‘and come short of the glory of God,

- being justified freely by His grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. 3, 23. 24.
“By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works,
lest any man should boast,” Eph. 2, 8. 9. “I am
.the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no man
cometh unto the Father but by me,” says Christ.
There is no other way to God and to heaven than
by faith in Jesus. “Neither is there salvation in
any other; for there is none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved,” says the Bible. No other name than the
name of Jesus.

Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill Thy Law’s demands.
Could my zeal no respite know,

- Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone:.
Thou must save, and Thou alone!

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the Fountain fly:
Wash me, Savior, or I die!

The Office of the Keys, and Confession.

CoNFESSION.

As the heading indicates, the Fifth Chief Part
of our Catechism also treats of Confession. The
Catechism tells us that Confession, as here under-
stood, embraces two parts; namely, Confession
proper and Absolution, or the announcement of
forgiveness. Of these two parts, Absolution is by
far the more important and is a practical applica-
_ tion of the Office of the Keys. And being an exer-
cise of the power to forgive sins, given by Christ
to His Church, we are to receive such Absolution
spoken by the pastor as coming from God Himself,
and in no wise doubt, but firmly believe, that by it
our sins are forgiven by God in heaven.

It is customary in our church that a short
preparatory service is held for the communicants
at every celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In this
preparatory service, also called confessional service,
the pastor in a short address prepares the communi-
cants by showing them their great need of forgive-
ness. After this address the pastor, in the so-called
‘general confession, as the mouthpiece of the com-
municants, gives expression to the conviction of
sinfulness which the confessional address purposed

The Lutheran Pioneer.

to bring about. Hereupon, as the agent and instru-
ment of God, the minister pronounces the absolu-
tion; that is, he forgives them their sins in the
stead and in the name of God, by virtue of his
office as minister, called thereto by the congrega-
tion. This General Confession as it is found among
us is a confession to God, and in it we plead guilty
of all sins, even of those which we do not know, as
we also do in the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s
Prayer, and the Absolution is nothing else than the
special application of the Gospel and the execution
of the command to preach the Gospel to every
creature.

Here and there, however, in our church, we also
have the so-called Private Confession, where the in-
dividual person privately confesses his sinfulness
to the pastor, not only in general terms, but also
by mentioning those sins which he knows and feels
in his heart. This Private Confession is of great
value in cases where a person is particularly troubled
because of his sins; for the absolution pronounced
to him individually can leave no doubt in his mind
that his sins are actually forgiven. While the gen-
eral absolution might leave doubts in his mind that
God really wants to forgive him, the private abso-
lution must induce him to believe that God has
forgiven him, since His servant has pronounced
the absolution to him individually and has forgiven
his particular sins.

But, perhaps, somebody will say, “Is not this
Private Confession papistic?” By no means; for
there is a great difference between such a voluntary
private confession of sins which trouble a, person,
and the compulsory Auricular Confession of all sins
as found in the Romish Church. In Private Con-
fession as found among us, after having examined
himself according to the Ten Commandments, a
person voluntarily confesses those sins which worry
and trouble him. There is no compulsion, no
searching judicial examination for a detailed state-
ment of sins, but the confessing person tells what
he wishes to tell, and that is all. There is no idea
on the part of the pastor of telling the confessing
party that he must recount all his sins, and there ,
is nothing said by the pastor to lead the sinner to
believe that the absolution will go only as far as
the confession of particular sins goes. On the
other hand, the Romish Auricular Confession is
wholly compulsory; the one who confesses is given
fo understand that a detailed confession is a neces-
sary condition of absolution, that only those sins
which are confessed sill be forgiven, that willful